Brisk polling in Coimbatore & Tirupur districts

Coimbatore (TN), Apr 13: Workers of DMK and rival AIADMK almost came to blows in a polling booth at Valparai near here today (Apr 13), following reported canvassing of votes by the ruling party near the booth but timely intervention of police averted a clash, police said.

With security being tight, particularly in all city polling booths, there were no untoward incidents reported.

A short circuit resulted in snapping of power supply today at the Electronic Corporation of Tamil Nadu Centre, functioning in the District Collectorate premises, where the main web camera and control units were kept to monitor progress of voting.

Though there was no delay in beginning of voting process, officials had some problem in monitoring voting in the booths in the district,for nearly half an hour.Power was restored after switching over to the UPS,official sources said.

Voting was brisk in the 10 constituencies of the district and eight in nearby Tirupur district, where about 20 to 22 percentage of polling was reported at 11 AM, they said.

Coimbatore North reported 16 per cent, Coimbatore South 21, Mettupalayam 20, Sulur 25, Koundampalayam 21, Thondamuthur 28, Singanallur 22, Kinathukadau 14, Pollachi 23 and Valparai 21 per cent at 11 AM.

Many people, who reached the bus stand at nearby Tirupur around 3 AM to go to their villages in Madurai, Dindigul and Theni districts to exercise their franchise, were surprised to find that the buses had stopped plying, without any prior information, police said.

At Neithavasal village in Poompuhar constituency in Nagapattinam district, polling was delayed by an hour due to a snag in the electronic voting machine.

PTI